The Rain
by marykate3000
Summary: When it rains, it's the best time to think. Travis Stoll isn't a thinking person. But when it rains, he takes the time to think. When he thinks, he thinks of her, Katie Gardner, who is sitting across from him. He thinks what he never tells her, and she's okay by that. Sometimes he thinks she shouldn't be. Set when Katie and Travis are adults. One-shot.


Rainy days were the best. Rain beat against the roof of their house and offered a comfort to both of them. Rainy days were the quiet days though, but quiet was good. Quiet is nice. Especially with a dog resting against your legs. The quiet gave you time to think.

He would occasionally look up from his laptop to look at her. She always wouldn't be looking back because she'd be so engrossed with the book she was reading. He couldn't get how she could like reading with her dyslexia and all and the ADHD but he saw it was some science book that he wouldn't understand but she would understand every single word.

Sometimes she would try to explain what she did that day but he wouldn't even understand what she was saying due to all the 'sciency' things she was saying. She would just sigh and just say "Never mind."

And when he wasn't looking she would look up at him. He was damn sexy without even trying. Her thoughts about him had changed slightly throughout the years she has known him. But if you looked at her thoughts about him from when she was 13 years old to her now 25 year old self, you would see the big difference. When she thinks about her 13 year old self repulsed and screaming at her now for even dating one of the pompous Stoll brothers amused her.

She loved him and sometimes she caught herself thinking 'Wow, he would make a good father'. She would mentally smack herself. They never talked about children, they weren't even married. She didn't even know if he liked children. They didn't even talk about getting married. Maybe he didn't want to get married. He probably didn't. But she wanted to get married. It was one of her life goals as a little girl and some things didn't just fade away. It wasn't as serious as it was when she was little but still, she wanted to get married. She wanted to have children too, but she wasn't so sure now.

There were too many 'not so sure' thoughts in her life.

She noticed she was staring at him for more than she should so she blushed and went back reading.

He noticed she was staring at him alright, he noticed everything around him. It made him good at his job to notice the tiny little details (it's a government job, don't ask). Plus she wasn't so sneaky about it. Plus she was cute when she was trying to be sneaky.

Cute. A word he never thought he would to describe her. Thinking back to his 13 year old self he would have never thought about calling Katie Gardner 'sexy'. He had a feeling if he had known he was going to even date Katie Gardner when he was 13 he would have faked barfed and the fabric of time and space would tear because his stupid 13 year old self would avoid at all costs to even date Katie.

In which he would try to save it by persuading how good the sex was.

He hated all her annoying qualities but she had some pretty good ones. All the sexiness pushed aside (he could list off all the sexy things they did together but those weren't her only good qualities and plus he stated that there were too much sexy qualities for him to list) there were things he loved about her.

He loved that she was afraid of heights so he could drag her to high places or sprout wings from his shoes and drag her up to the sky just so he could feel her hold him close to her and hear her freaked out screams for him to put her down and that she was going to kill him later in his sleep (by the way, she never would).

He liked her cooking too. Without her he would probably starve to death. She sometimes yelled at him for him to learn how to cook but when he did she yelled and told him to never cook again or he'll burn the house down.

He liked the way she did the little things for him. Like sometimes when he was just lying face down on the bed after work she would just come over and demand that he take off his shirt. Him being stupid couldn't see what she was doing. From there she would just massage his back. Or when she would go wash his car for him. And he would repay her by being a shitty boyfriend.

He would tell her that and she would say, "No you aren't."

That was another thing he liked about her, she was nice to him when he was a total douchebag to her. He agreed with all his friends from camp, he had no idea how he kept her for all these years or why she stayed.

Also, she was really pretty, he liked that about her. She also smelt good, which was a bonus. He doesn't know why Drew said that she was ugly. Katie was a fucking goddess compared to Drew. Well in his opinion, but Katie was plenty pretty. When he told Katie that she would give him a 'are you serious?' look and say, "No I'm not." But… But she was amazing! How could she ever think that she's not?

All of those things about her that he loved, he never told her. He just kept it to himself. He wasn't very affectionate, and she knew that. She didn't have any problem with that because she wasn't affectionate like other girls, but she still was.

They barely even said 'I love you' to each other.

They weren't like Percy and Annabeth who were so horribly in love it was disgusting. (A/n: I'm basing this off all the horrible fanfictions that make Percy and Annabeth say 'I LOVE YOU!' every few when they talk. I have nothing against Percabeth; ship whatever you want. It's just that Percabeth isn't my ship.)

But she deserved so much better. He thought that he didn't deserve her.

But all of it would never be told to her. None of it.

He shooed the dog away from his lap and set his laptop aside. "You know Gardner; you're really bad at trying to be sneaky."

She blushed behind her book. "What do you mean? I wasn't looking at you!"

"You're also a horrible liar." he laughed, pulling her closer to him by the waist. She did what she automatically did and wrapped her arms around his neck. This was one of the times when they were affectionate of each other.

"Okay, fine. I am a horrible liar and bad at trying to sneak a glance at you, happy?" she asked.

"Yes, I am." he said reaching over and stealing a kiss from her. She stole a kiss back.

"Now get your face away from me Stoll," Katie said, pushing him away. "I need to call Gretchen and tell her we need to do more tests." She got up and walked away from him and he thought as the rain pitter pattered on the roof.

Travis Stoll was more of a doing person but when he thought, he thought long and hard. He took the ring box out of his pocket. 'Maybe tomorrow,' he thought hopelessly as he flipped it open and stared quietly at the ring.

He didn't want to be just her shitty boyfriend; he wanted to be her shitty fiancé and then shitty husband.

All he had to do was stop thinking and actually do it.

Tomorrow was the day he was going to do it. He was going to do it in the most unromantic way ever.

But for now, he was stuck to listening to the rain and the sound of her voice while thoughts raced in his head a mile a minute.

_Pitter…_

_ Patter…_

_ Pitter…_

_ Patter…_

It's a good time to think while it rains and maybe it's also a good time to propose.

It just so happened that it wasn't today.

* * *

**That's it! I hoped you enjoyed it! I felt like I needed to write more Tratie to get me out of my writers block and it did. Plus, the world needs more Tratie. (Plus I need to write more Tratie.) **

**Thanks for reading!**


End file.
